saw this and said, ‘I monitor a lot of people. You were one of them. It’s not really that big of a deal. You’re part of a crowd, really. People in certain emerging technologies. It’s not direct surveillance. I mean no one is watching you or anything like that. It’s a matter of tracking your records, mostly.’
‘That’s all?’
‘Well – no. E-mail, where you call, expenditures – that sort of thing. A lot of it’s automated. Like with your credit rating. It’s just a kind of monitoring, looking for patterns.’
‘Uh huh,’ Frank said, feeling less disturbed, but also reviewing things he might have said on the phone, to Derek Gaspar for instance. ‘But look, why me?’
‘I don’t get told why. But I looked into it a little after we met, and my guess would be that you’re an associational.’
‘Meaning?’
‘That you have some kind of connection with a Yann Pierzinski.’
‘Ahhhhh?’ Frank said, thinking furiously.
‘That’s what I think, anyway. You’re one of a group that’s being monitored together, and they all tend to have some kind of connection with him. He’s the hub.’
‘It must be his algorithm.’
‘Maybe so. Really I don’t know. I don’t make the determinations of interest.’
‘Who does?’
‘People above me. Some of them I know, and then others above those. The agency is pretty firewalled.’
‘It must be his algorithm. That’s the main thing he’s worked on ever since his doctoral work.’
‘Maybe so. The people I work for use an algorithm themselves, to identify people who should be tracked.’
‘Really? Do you know what kind?’
‘No. I do know that they’re running a futures market. You know what those are?’
Frank shook his head. ‘Like that Poindexter thing?’
‘Yes, sort of. He had to resign, and really he should have, because that was stupid what he was doing. But the idea of using futures markets itself has gone forward.’
‘So they’re betting on future acts of terrorism?’
‘No no. That was the stupid part, putting it like that. There’s much better ways to use those programs. They’re just futures markets, when you design them right. They’re like any other futures market. It’s a powerful way to collate information. They out-perform most of the other predictive methods we use.’
‘That’s hard to believe.’
‘Is it?’ She shrugged. ‘Well, the people I work for believe in them. But the one they’ve set up is a bit different than the standard futures market. It’s not open to anyone, and it isn’t even real money. It’s like a virtual futures market, a simulation. There are these people at MIT who think they have it working really well, and they’ve got some real-world results they can point to. They focus on people rather than events, so really it’s a people futures market, instead of commodities or ideas. So Homeland Security and associated agencies like ours have gotten interested. We’ve got this program going, and now you’re part of it. It’s almost a pilot program, but it’s big, and I bet it’s here to stay.’
‘Is it legal?’
‘It’s hard to say what’s legal these days, don’t you think? At least concerning surveillance. A determination of interest usually comes from the Justice Department, or is approved by it. It’s classified, and we’re a black program that no one on the outside will ever hear about. People who try to publish articles about idea futures markets, or people futures markets, are discouraged from doing so. It can get pretty explicit. I think my bosses hope to keep using the program without it ever causing any fuss.’
‘So there are people betting on who will do innovative work, or defect to China, or like that?’
‘Yes. Like that. There are lots of different criteria.’
‘Jesus,’ Frank said, shaking his head in amazement. ‘But, I mean – who in the hell would bet on me?’
She laughed. ‘I would, right?’
Frank put his hand on top of hers and squeezed it.
‘But actually,’ she said, turning her hand and twining her fingers with his, ‘at this point, I think most of the investors in the market are various kinds of diagnostic programs.’
Now it was Frank’s turn to laugh. ‘So there are computer programs out there, betting I am going to become some kind of a security risk.’
She nodded, smiling at the absurdity of it. Although Frank realized, with a little jolt of internal surprise, that if the whole project were centered around Pierzinski, then the programs might be getting it right. Frank himself had judged that Pierzinski’s algorithm might allow them to read the proteome directly from the genome, thus giving them any number of new gene therapies, which if they could crack the delivery problem had the potential of curing outright many, many diseases. That would be a good in itself, and would also be worth billions. And Frank had without a doubt been involved with Yann’s career, first on his doctoral committee and then running the panel judging his proposal. He had impacted Yann’s career in ways he hadn’t even intended, by sabotaging his application so that Yann had gone to Torrey Pines Generique and then Small Delivery Systems, where he was now.
Possibly the futures market had taken notice of that.
Caroline was now looking more relaxed, perhaps relieved that he was not outraged or otherwise freaked out by her news. He tried to stay cool. What was done was done. He had tried to secure Pierzinski’s work for a company he had ties to, yes; but he had failed. So despite his best (or worst) efforts, there was nothing now he needed to hide.
‘You said MIT,’ he said, thinking things over. ‘Is Francesca Taolini involved with this?’
A surprised look, then: ‘Yes. She’s another subject of interest. There’s about a dozen of you. I was assigned to surveil most of the group.’
‘Did you, I don’t know … do you record what people say on the phone, or in rooms?’
‘Sometimes, if we want to. The technology has gotten really powerful, you have no idea. But it’s expensive, and it’s only fully applied in some cases. Pierzinski’s group – you guys are still under a much less intrusive kind of thing.’
‘Good.’ Frank shook his head, like a dog shaking off water. His thoughts were skittering around in all directions. ‘So … you’ve been watching me for a year. But I haven’t done anything.’
‘I know. But then …’
‘Then what?’
‘Then I saw you on that Metro car, and I recognized you. I couldn’t believe it. I had only seen your photo, or maybe some video, but I knew it was you. And you looked upset. Very … intent on something.’
‘Yes,’
